About the Project
Leeuwepoort is a mixed residential development in the Leeuwesteyn neighbourhood of Utrecht, combining 113 homes across three distinct building types. At the heart of the project stand 58 timber-structured apartments — the focus of this carbon certification — built with a load-bearing structure of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) and glulam beams supplied by Binderholz. Where conventional apartment buildings rely on concrete frames, Leeuwepoort's timber block stores over 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ for more than 75 years, from the moment the structure is complete.
The project sets a high bar across the full range of sustainability metrics. Its environmental performance score (MPG 0.42) is nearly half the legal requirement, energy performance reaches net-zero for primary fossil energy use (BENG 2=0), and renewable energy covers 100% of demand. The biobased content by volume reaches 46% — more than twice the sector average — while 57% of building components are designed for disassembly, against a conventional rate of roughly 15%. These figures are not incidental: they reflect a deliberate development strategy by AM to demonstrate that high-density urban housing and climate-positive construction can go hand in hand.
Beyond its structural performance, Leeuwepoort integrates shared amenities that support low-carbon living in practice: collective rooftop gardens, shared electric cargo bikes, and a parcel point to reduce delivery traffic. The exposed timber ceilings visible inside the apartments are not just a design choice — they are a direct expression of the carbon stored within the building fabric itself.
Construction is scheduled to begin in July 2026, with completion in July 2028.
About the Remover
Leeuwepoort is developed by AM B.V., one of the Netherlands' leading area and property developers, in close collaboration with BAM Mid Rise, BAM Flow, Studio Ard Hoksbergen, DGMR, DWA, and Merosch. AM won the municipal tender for the Leeuwesteyn site in Utrecht in 2022, and has since developed Leeuwepoort as a flagship expression of its climate-positive development strategy.
The carbon removal credits associated with the project are submitted and managed by AM, ensuring direct accountability for the long-term carbon storage within the biobased structure. No external subsidies or third parties hold claims on the captured CO₂, preserving the additionality and integrity of the certification.
For AM, the recognition of carbon storage in Leeuwepoort is part of a broader ambition: to make the value of biobased construction legible — financially and ecologically — and to embed that value structurally in how new housing is developed and brought to market. Leeuwepoort shows that timber-based urban housing at scale is not a future ambition, but a present reality.
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